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Every Icon

Given: A 32 X 32 Grid
Allowed: Any element of the grid
to be black or white
Shown: Every Icon
Can a machine produce every possible image?
What are the limits of this kind of automation?
Is it possible to practice image making by exploring
all of image-space using a computer rather
than by recording from the world around us?
What does it mean that one may discover visual imagery
so detached from "nature"?
Every Icon progresses by counting. Starting with an image
where every grid element is white, the software displays
combinations of black and white elements, proceeding toward
an image where every element is black. In contrast to presenting
a single image as an intentional sign, Every Icon presents all
possibilities.
The grid contains all possible images. Any change in the starting
conditions, such as the size of the grid or the color of the element,
determines an entirely different set of possible images.
When Every Icon begins, the image changes rapidly. Yet the progression
of the elements across the grid seems to take longer and longer.
How long until recognizable images appear? Try several hundred trillion years.
The total number of black and white icons in a 32 X 32 grid is:
1.8 X 10308(a billion is 109).
Though, for example, at a rate of 100 icons per second (on a typical desktop
computer), it will take only 1.36 years to display all variations of the first
line of the grid, the second line takes an exponentially longer 5.85 billion
years to complete.
While Every Icon is resolved conceptually, it is unresolvable in practice.
In some ways the theoretical possibilities outdistance
the time scales of both evolution and imagination.
It posits a representational system where computational
promise is intricately linked to extraordinary duration and momentary sensation.
Through brute force, this piece calculates every possible combination of
black and white dots on a 32 by 32 grid. Given enough time, the grid will
show every icon possible--from your mouse pointer, to the Mona Lisa. Believe it.